by Ron Fisher
I couldn’t help thinking of my grandfather. This was what he’d always wanted, to see me following in his footsteps as publisher of the Clarion. It was too bad he wasn’t alive to see it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The sun had gone down, and Eloise and I were having a last coffee and celebrating a successful press-day when my cell phone rang. It was April Cheney.
“She’s gonna’ get hurt,” April said, in a hushed voice, but I could tell she was excited. “You need to get her out of here before something bad happens.”
“Who’s going to get hurt?” I heard the distant sound of a car horn beep. She must be calling from the parking lot in back of the Tiger’s Tail.
“This reporter from your paper, Vickie something. I figured you sent her.”
“Sent her to do what? What’s she doing in there, April?”
“She started out by asking Terrell if he knew where she could score some oxy. He stonewalled her, and she wandered away to the back of the bar. She had stashed her purse behind the bar when she came in, like women in here often do—and Terrell went through it—like he sometimes does. He’s a nosy bastard with people he don’t know. He found a Clarion business card in it. I saw it. Her driver’s license was in there too, and her looks tonight certainly don’t match the picture on it. She’s dressed like a slut, her idea of undercover, I guess. But leaving her business card in her purse doesn’t make her very smart. But she’s been made, and Terrell went back and did some whispering in Sonny’s ear, so he knows.”
“Shit,” I said. It was all I could think of to say. That crazy, naïve girl.
April said, “Somehow, she hooked up with Sonny. I don’t know if that was her move or his, but now they’re sitting in a booth with Doughboy, and some black dude I don’t know, having a gay old time. Sonny is obviously toying with her, and I can tell you, this won’t end well. She’s gonna’ find herself in the backseat of a car in the parking lot with her heels in the air, and three horny dudes taking turns with her, if you don’t come and get her.”
“I’m on my way,” I said and rang off. At least Alvin was with her—assuming he was the black dude. I told Eloise, who was sitting there listening with a puzzled look, that I’d fill her in later, and hit the door.
#
I made the Tiger’s Tail in record time, the result of doing ninety miles an hour in the straightaways, barely maintaining a grip on the curves, and the extraordinary luck of not crossing paths with anything wandering across the road or any officers of the law.
Vickie was still sitting with Sonny Dollar but alone at a table for two now. Alvin was in a booth against the wall across the room sitting with Doughboy. I knew I didn’t have to worry about Vickie’s safety with Alvin there. Whether he knew who she was or not, he’d blow his cover to stop anything from happening to a woman. I hoped that I could get her out before that.
I saw Alvin glance at me as I approached. He didn’t move, but a sudden alertness in his eyes said he was anticipating whatever it was that brought me there. I almost didn’t recognize Vickie. She’d replaced the horn-rim glasses and bookish look with heavy eye-shadow, black lipstick and nails, and a nose and an eyebrow ring. She looked like she was in the same Seattle garage band as Jason Pilgrim. She was wearing a short, black leather skirt, fishnet stockings and black combat boots laced to the top. Très sexy, if you’re a goth. Or Sonny Dollar, who was eyeing her like she was a twenty-four-ounce rib-eye and he hadn’t eaten in a week. Even I had to admit she was sexy, and I almost smiled until I noticed her expression, which was one of utter fear. She’d recognized what a mistake she’d made. There was a glimmer of relief in her eyes when she saw me. If she’d known what I thought about her being here, she should have been afraid of me too. I felt like killing her.
“Come on, Vickie, it’s time to go,” I said, as I reached their table.
“You two know each other. Surprise, surprise,” Sonny said. “But she ain’t going nowhere. We bout’ to get a party on, me and her.”
“Let’s go, Vickie,” I said again, and held out my hand for her. “I don’t want any trouble,” I said to Sonny.
“You found trouble the second you walked in here,” Sonny said, and looked at Vickie. “Both of you.”
I grabbed Vickie’s hand and pulled her toward the rear exit. It was the closest way out. Sonny got up and followed us, with Doughboy and thankfully, Alvin, right behind him. No one else in the place seemed to notice us leaving. Either that or they didn’t want to get caught up in whatever was happening, which would make the Tiger’s Tail clientele smarter than I would have expected.
As I passed through the door into the parking lot, I heard Sonny’s footsteps quicken and realized he was coming at me. I turned just in time to do a quick juke that barely avoided a hay-maker aimed at my chin. His fist went by blowing wind like a passing train. I caught him off balance from the swing and gave him all I had with an uppercut to the soft spot just below the middle of his ribs, then grabbed him with both hands by his leather biker’s vest and slammed him down onto the tarmac. If he’d caught me with that blind-side haymaker, it would have been a clear decision for the other side. He didn’t want a fair fight, so I wouldn’t give him one. I kicked him hard in the ribs while he was down, hoping that if he was the one who hurt Kelly, he would recognize it as the first of a lot of payback that would be coming his way.
As I turned to grab Vickie’s hand again and head toward our cars, Sonny managed to scramble up on an elbow, and pull an automatic pistol from under his shirt, racked it, and pointed it at me.
“You lose, Mother-fucker,” he said.
Behind him, Alvin took two quick steps and in a move almost too fast to register chopped the edge of an open hand down on Sonny’s wrist. I thought I heard a bone snap. Sonny yelled, and the gun went clattering across the tarmac. As Sonny lay moaning and writhing, I led Vickie around the building and she pointed me to her car, a Mini-Cooper, quite likely the only one ever parked at the biker bar. Alvin was close behind us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Alvin caught up as we reached Vickie’s car. “I guess my undercover job at the Tiger’s Tail is over.”
“That can happen when you break the arm of the guy you’re trying to get in with,” I said.
Vickie, who had scrambled behind me as she saw Alvin approach, stepped clear. “Wait! He’s working undercover for you?”
“He was, Alvin Brown, meet Vickie Sayers. Vickie is one of my reporters.”
“Ex-reporter, probably. Glad to meet you,” she said.
I said, “I should fire you. You sure as hell don’t know how to take orders.” I turned to Alvin, “I specifically told her not to do something like this.”
“Then you should have told me about him,” Vickie said, pointing at Alvin. “If I screwed things up, I’m sorry. But I was trying to do what any good reporter would do, whether I had your official okay or not. How can I do my job, if you don’t keep me in the loop? And by the way, I was doing pretty well until you came in and blew my cover.”
“We’ll talk about your cover later. And whether or not I should have told you about Alvin is beside the point. I gave you an order.”
“Well, your orders suck. If all you want is an obedient little girl to keep her mouth shut and do research for you, then you’ve got the wrong girl. So, you might as well fire me.”
I turned to Alvin again. He seemed amused.
“Girl’s got grit,” he said, grinning. “You gotta’ like it.”
I looked to see if Sonny Dollar and any sidekicks were following us. They weren’t, but there was no reason to risk it.
I said, “Let’s get out of here. Meet me at that all-night diner up the road, Sammy’s. The Clarion is buying.”
I looked at Vickie. “You, too. If you want to be in the loop, here’s your chance.”
Alvin and I went to our respective automobiles, Vickie got in her Mini-Cooper and we all caravanned to the diner. We got coffee and ordered food. I sat a moment, quiet
ly looking at her.
“What do you think you accomplished with your little caper tonight?” I asked her.
“I now know the names of three guys who are connected to the drug trade,” she said, obviously proud.
“And how can you prove that? Did they offer you drugs?”
“No, but we talked enough for me to know they could have. You’ve got to start somewhere. This was the first step.”
“But they made you.”
“How do you know that? I mean, yeah, Sonny Dollar was scaring me, but it wasn’t because he made me as an undercover reporter, it was because he had plans to make me—if you get my drift—and wasn’t taking no for an answer. I thought he was about to drag me outside and rip my clothes off.”
I said, “Or worse, have you forgotten what they did to Kelly?”
“No, but still, I don’t know why you think anyone made me. How would you even know if they had? Did he tell you?” she asked, gesturing at Alvin.
“No, the red-haired bartender did. She’s on our side too.” I gave Vickie a stern look. “And don’t even think of approaching her yourself. It will get her hurt. So, against my better judgment, I’m trusting you to keep this strictly among us.”
“I promise. But that still doesn’t tell me how I was made.”
“The bartender went through your purse, which you foolishly stored behind the bar, and even more foolishly, left one of your Clarion business cards in it.”
“Oh, I thought I took them all out. Well, chalk that down to a learning experience. Be more thorough, next time.”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get Vickie to admit she’d done anything wrong. Was it stubbornness, or just an overblown sense of self-confidence? Or her tender age? But she did have courage and tenacity—grit, as Alvin called it—and I found myself admiring her for that, just a little. Maybe her decision skills weren’t all that good. Perhaps those would come with experience and age. I doubted if I would ever win an argument with this feisty young woman.
“It just dawned on me who you remind me of,” I said.
“An out-of-work reporter?” Vickie said.
“Kelly,” I said.
“I remind you of Kelly? I’ll take that as a compliment.” Vickie smiled at me for the first time that night. She’d already figured out I wasn’t going to fire her.
Our food came, and we dug in.
While we ate, I gave Vickie a brief explanation of who Alvin was and how I knew him. She was impressed.
“So, what do we do now, Kemosabe?” Alvin asked.
“I can tell you what we’re not going to do. We aren’t going to send anyone else in the Tiger’s Tail undercover.”
“Fine by me, they were never gonna’ trust me anyway. They’re a close-knit bunch and suspicious of everyone. And Sonny ain’t exactly race-friendly, either.”
“Maybe we can get something on this Doughboy that scares him more than Sonny Dollar or his brother Laverne. He looks like a weak link.”
“Or maybe we grab him, put him in a locked room, and start breaking his bones until he talks,” Alvin offered.
I nodded. “There is that, but for now, I’m getting some sleep. You guys should too.”
Vickie had been listening intently, hanging on every word, her eyes wide.
I told her, “You need to go home and wash that gunk off your face. We’ll talk in the morning.”
She didn’t say anything, but she did give me the shadow of a smile. Alvin and I sat and watched her go.
With Alvin “Big Hurt” Brown and a twenty-four-year-old tenacious spitfire like Vickie on my team, I had to have the most inverse weapons that investigative journalism had ever seen.
How could I lose?
CHAPTER THIRTY
As we walked to our cars in Sammy’s Diner’s parking lot, Alvin clenched a hand on my upper arm and quietly said, “Don’t look now, but I think we’ve got company. To your left, against the concrete wall.”
I took a couple more steps and as casually as I could, stole a glance in that direction. A black SUV with the motor running sat at the edge of the lot. The windows were tinted so dark it was impossible to see who was inside. The driver’s window was lowered a couple of inches to reveal a pair of eyes watching us. It wasn’t enough to recognize who, but they didn’t look friendly.
“How do you know they’re here for us?” I asked.
“I feel it,” Alvin said, and didn’t expound on it. “Get in the Mustang.”
“The Jeep’s closer.”
“The Mustang’s got more muscle and corners better.”
“We about to be into a race?”
“More likely a chase,” Alvin said.
“Who are we chasing?
“Nobody. I think we about to be the chasee, not the chasor.”
I got into the Mustang with him and we pulled out of the lot. Alvin was right; the SUV came out right behind us.
“Buckle up,” Alvin said, and picked up speed, heading east. I looked back to see the SUV close the gap frighteningly fast.
Alvin was looking in the mirror. He stomped the accelerator a little more.
As we left the Clemson town limits, the highway became a divided freeway on its way east to Easley and Greenville. There was little traffic at that time of night, and we had the road to ourselves. I glanced at the speedometer. Alvin already had the Mustang at a seventy-five. The problem was, we weren’t losing the SUV. The glare of their headlights was bright on the backs of our heads. The SUV was right on our tail.
Alvin said, “Dammit, why does every white boy down here grow up wanting to be a NASCAR driver?” He stomped the accelerator a little more. “We can’t outrun him on a straight-away. I need to get us an advantage.”
“So what do we do?” I said. “I left my Uzi at home.”
Alvin slowed and slammed on the brakes to make a hard tire-squealing left turn across an open break in the median. We headed back toward Clemson in the opposite lane. The SUV missed the break and shot past it, brake lights flaring, looking for another place to cross over. They must have found one, because it wasn’t long before we saw their headlights approaching fast from behind again.
By then we were back in Clemson on the outskirts of the university campus. Alvin made a sudden violent turn into the maze of small streets that make up the college grounds, tires screeching, engine racing and pulling about the same G’s as an F/A Super Hornet jet fighter on a suicide dive. My heart was in my mouth as we zig-zagged through the narrow campus streets. The SUV had made the turn too, but slowly and was no match for the cornering ability of the Mustang. Alvin was right. My Jeep would have been doing sideways cartwheels about now. I was suddenly feeling like we might live to fight another day if Alvin could avoid putting us through the windows of some classroom or dorm.
We made a hard right and flew down the hill, Clemson Memorial football stadium rising up before us, the nosebleed section of the stands visible from this angle. The field beyond the wrought iron entrance gates was lit brightly as if there was some nighttime maintenance work going on.
As the street dead-ended against the stadium, Alvin made a right, then a hard left, and another left to the back of the stadium. The SUV was still behind us, but we lost them from sight momentarily as we made the turns. Behind the stadium was a large opening in the outer wall under the stands leading to a cavernous dark interior. Beyond that, an inner gate leading out onto the lit green field.
Alvin swung the Mustang through the open access, pulled behind a white panel truck that was parked inside, and doused the motor and the headlights. A few seconds later, the SUV came flying by on the street outside and disappeared up and over the hill.
“Maneuverability and cornering,” Alvin said, and grinned.
We had lost them—at least for now.
A rap on my window gave me a start. A man in a dark blue shirt and pants stood there frowning at me. I rolled down the window, thinking he was a cop. It turned out that he was a maintenance man.
“You c
an’t be in here,” he said, angrily. “This is a no trespassing zone.”
Alvin leaned forward and nodded toward the field behind the wrought iron gate. “Sorry, sir. Just wanted to get a better look at the field. I love them Tigers. We’ll be leaving now.”
Alvin started the Mustang, turned the headlights back on, and drove through the open outer gate. Outside, he took a right, the opposite direction the SUV had gone. We made it back to my Jeep at Sammy’s Diner without spotting it again.
Alvin said, “We got the mother-fuckers’ attention. So, what’s next?”
“We need to know more about these Dollar brothers. If they’re involved in the opioid business, then we need to prove it.”
“They tailed us, so, let’s tail them,” Alvin said.
“It may come to that, but there’s something I want to try first, and I need a little time to set it up. I’ll call you about it tomorrow. It probably won’t be until the afternoon.”
I could see that Alvin was curious to hear more about it.
I said, “I’ll tell you all about it when I call. We don’t want to hang around here until these guys come back, so let’s get out of here.”
“I’ll hang loose tomorrow, so just hit me up.”
We left, both of us taking the back roads home to avoid running into the SUV again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The sound of a car in the driveway woke me up. I glanced at my bedside clock, and it was almost three-thirty in the morning. I’d been asleep in my old familiar bedroom at Still Hollow since my head hit the pillow.
Then all hell broke loose. Automatic gunfire erupted like I was in the middle of a battle in Beirut. I was out of bed and on the floor in a heartbeat. Windows shattered across the front of the house, peppering me with broken glass. The bullets, coming from a low angle, punched holes in the ceiling, well over my head. I heard Eloise scream as the shooting moved to her room.
